The Hazard Chronicles

Well- 2026 is here. I have every reason to be optimistic that it will be a good one. We'll do an update on everyone probably sometime in the next week or two. For now, let's just go over our last week or so.

Right now, Rachel and Jack are at the theater watching the finale of Stranger Things. This show has been a cultural phenomenon that has flown mostly under my own personal radar, but which some people in our family have been very into. Evelyn is in Coeur d'Alene hanging out with friends. Maren and Lindsey are downstairs playing with (and probably arguing over) the Nintendo Switch that we got for Christmas. Addy has been sitting on the couch for the past hour or so, finishing up a book. She's been a little tired today after going to a New Year's party last night. Ev was also out late. The rest of us stayed home. I went to bed before midnight, because I am super lame like that, but everyone else stayed up and did a little celebration downstairs. The song "Daydream Believer" playing on a radio somewhere and I have no idea who turned it on, but I like that song. I've just finished cleaning the kitchen and am now sitting at the table writing this post while eating my lunch (tuna melts). It feels like a pretty normal afternoon for us- maybe a little on the lazy side- which is actually kind of nice considering the last week of activity.

So, let's back up. We had our Christmas Eve/Christmas Day celebrations. I wrote about that last week. It was nice. The day after that, we didn't take long to load up the car, and we were soon on the road headed to The Great White North. There is this little hotel in Golden that we always stay at, and it feels almost like a second home to us at this point. There isn't anything too special about it- just that it has connected rooms that comfortably accommodate our entire family, and is well situated to put us within striking distance of a lot of different adventure spots. The sauna/pool/hot tub are nice after activity-filled days, the attached restaurant has some of the best pizza I've ever had, and the baked beans for breakfast are different enough to feel a little exotic to us. In short- it's perfect.

I don't know if there's a good way to describe the skiing we did that will actually do it justice. Unlike us in the states, the resorts up there are getting some of the best snow they've had in decades. It skis like February, and some places report that there is more coverage now, even in the early-season, than at any other time in the last 2-3 years. In short, conditions were ideal. Cold. But ideal.

We did two days at Lake Louise and one at Revelstoke. We were going to put a day in at Banff Sunshine as well, but we got distracted by a side quest that ended up being one of the best days for everyone. More on that later. As for the individual runs- the ones most memorable to me are the steeps off the backside of Lake Louise with Ev, Addy, and Jack, the amazing trees at Revy, the super fast groomers with Rachel, Maren, and Jack, and skiing with Lindsey on her inaugural run down "Kill The Banker" (a classic, must-do run). We had great visibility and blue skies most of the time, which always makes everything feel less serious and way more playful for me, and that joyful feeling seemed to be a shared aspect for most of the people I was with as well.

And that side quest? Yeah- on the way to Banff Sunshine, we decided to take a quick detour to the town of Banff. It's a pretty place. And from there, we went, at Evelyn's suggestion, to an "ice trail," where we hiked along a frozen creek over a catwalk of sorts for about three miles. There were several frozen waterfalls throughout the hike and beautiful scenery. Also, the "official" recommendation is to have ice cleats, which we didn't...which made the hiking itself far more fun in our opinion. Even though it wasn't a ski day per se, we got our fair share of sliding in. By the time we finished the hike, there wasn't much time left to ski, so we went back to the hotel feeling pretty satisfied with our spontaneity.

All told, we were in Canada for 5 days, and it was a very nice getaway for everyone. We all still have a few more days off before work/school start up again, and we have some activities planned for this time, but our Canada trip is likely going to be the standout feature of the break.

Anyway- here are some photos. Happy New Year, and have a good week!

A lot of our best photos this week are from our little ice hike. I think that while we are skiing it's a little more difficult to think about a camera.

Our car becomes a major player on these trips. 200k miles and lots of orange lights. The car place says it's just faulty sensors. I choose to believe them.